Windows 7: How do I reformat a DVD-R disc

Hauz · 07 Dec 2012

Just recently, I created a system repair disc with a 4.7 gigabyte DVD-R disc. After the disc was formatted, it's capacity was reduced to 146 megabytes.

How do I get the disc's capacity back to normal? I don't want to waste 4.68 gigabytes just for a repair disc.

If anyone knows how to get my disc's space back, please tell me. I'll learn from my mistake and use smaller discs first before using gigantic ones.

Thank you in advance if you can help me with this problem.

Dwarf · 07 Dec 2012

Hi HAuz and welcome to Windows 7 Forums

Sorry, but you can't. You have used a DVD-R, which is only writeable once. A DVD-RW (or DVD+RW or CD-RW) would allow you to do that as they can be written to more than once.

bobafetthotmail · 07 Dec 2012

as Dwarf said, DVD-R are only writable ONCE, if you wanted to erase and write other stuff, you must purchase DVD RW (rewritable).

Since you are using a DVD anyway, I'd suggest to make a Windows 7 installation disk, which can do all system repair functions AND also install a new Windows 7 in case you need it.

This tutorial provides links to clean Windows 7 iso files (basically a digital Windows 7 disk ready to be burned on a DVD with any serious disk burning tool), and how to place that on a thumbdrive if you want to use that instead (as it has way faster load times when you are using it).

Windows 7: How do I reformat a DVD-R disc

How do I reformat a DVD-R disc problems?